Black Durham Behind the Veil: A Case Study

Abstract

Whatever their political differences, Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois agreed that Durham, North Carolina, was the “city of cities to look for the prosperity of Negroes.” In 1911, Washington called Durham “a city of Negro enterprises,” praising its successful black-owned businesses and industries. Writing a year later, Du Bois extolled the achievement of “a new ‘group economy’” grounded in “teaching and preaching, buying and selling, employing and hiring, and even manufacturing” (1). At the time, Durham's African Americans owned and operated an insurance company, a bank, a textile mill, a cigar factory, brickyards, an iron works, a furniture factory, numerous retail establishments, a library, and a hospital. A decade later, sociologist E. Franklin Frazier hailed Durham as “the Capital of the Black Middle Class,” ranking it above Harlem for its seriousness of purpose: “Durham offers none of the color and creative life we find among Negroes in New York City,” he remarked. “It is a city of fine homes, exquisite churches, and middle class respectability. It is not the place where men write and dream; but a place where black men calculate and work” (2).